This is one of those posts where I don't exactly know where it's going to go, but I just feel like typing some things out so bear with me! I don't really even know who reads this blog, or how many people do (okay, so I know that part because I can see the stats) but really, I don't know who reads it. I'm not trying to be one of the super popular bloggers with thousands of followers, and frankly, that would scare the living daylights out of me! I post about totally random topics and despite the fact that I have no idea if anyone even cares, I still like it. It forces me sometimes to sit down and try to work through things in my head. I love to go through my old post, especially about the kids, because it's so easy to forget the little things when life gets so crazy. I will often go back and read my old postpartum depression posts as well. Sometimes it's hard to read those, and it doesnt take long for that same feeling in the pit of my stomach to come back. But sometimes it makes me proud. Proud to see how far I have come. Proud that I was willing to share my story, even if it fell on deaf ears. I will be the first to tell you about how HORRIBLE my memory is. So my blog often is a great reminder. It reminds me about all the goals that I have set. It reminds me to keep things simple. It reminds me about what is truly important to me. It reminds me about the things that truly make me happy.

Like I said, I have no idea where this is going haha.

One of the things I have been thinking about lately is not necessarily things that I want to do (although the list of things to do is always there), but things I want to STOP doing.

I don't know what it was, but I feel like there was a mental switch that I made a while ago. I can't pinpoint a particular day, or event which caused the switch, but whatever it was, I've been enjoying the results. I'm still struggling with anxiety every now and then, but feel like I have a much better handle on things . Heck, I even let Emma go to a Birthday party without having a bath first!! I know! That's big!!

I have started to look at things in a much more positive way, instead of dwelling on the negatives. This probably seems pretty cheesy, but I've felt happier over the past say six months then I have felt in a long time. Not that I was unhappy before by any means, but maybe I was just focusing too much on things that weren't going like I wanted them to, instead of focusing on how many things were going so well.

I feel incredibly blessed and instead of feeling all "woe is me" like I have done a lot in the past, I feel blessed every single day now. I have an amazing husband, who loves his family more than anything. I have two beautiful, crazy, happy children who make me laugh every single day. I have a job that I love (most of the time). I have a roof over my head, food on the table, an amazing family on both my side and Wes's side and I'm lucky enough to have financial stability (at least so far...stupid sequestration). What else do you need in life?

It doesn't matter if life gets crazy for a while. It doesn't matter if my car breaks down. It doesn't matter if my house is a mess. It doesn't matter if my kids ate mac-n-cheese for dinner without and vegetables one day. It doesn't matter if I'm not a millionaire. It doesn't matter if I have holes in my socks. It doesn't matter if my nails aren't painted. It doesn't matter if the mom next to me looks more put together then I do. It doesn't matter if all of Emma's Christmas ornaments are in one spot on the tree (because she put them on herself). It doesn't matter if this person said this, and should have said that. It doesn't matter if there are toys spread out across the house 24/7. It doesn't matter if I don't clean my bathroom this weekend. It doesn't matter if Emma goes to school with her hair not brushed. It doesn't matter if Jackson gets chocolate on his new outfit at a wedding.

None of it matters.

What matters is that my family is happy and healthy. That's it.

So, in light of my new found positivity, I started to think about all the stuff that makes me crazy, and makes me focus on the negative. I'm trying (repeat, trying) to stop doing those things. Like...

Making unrealistic or impossible to reach goals.

I'm trying to create specific, achievable goals (tried to start this with my 2012 goals list which I just turned into my 2013 goals list). How am I supposed to reach a goal if I'm not clear on what it is?

Adapt to a planning system that I'm not going to stick with. 

I tried the daily routine charts. Nope. I tried the monthly calendar of 2012 goals (haha, that lasted a month). Nope. If the planning system I'm using isn’t working, then so be it. It's out. If it doesn't save me time, but makes me waste it, forget it.

Agonize over decisions I need to make.

I'm still not the most decisive person in the world, and probably will never be. Somehow, I find the smaller decisions much harder then the bigger ones! But instead of “Teeter Tottering” on decisions, I've started to just make them. Because you know what, 99% of the time, the stuff that I am agonizing over doesn't matter. Nothing in life is permanent. So if it doesn't work, trying something different!

Saying yes. All the time.

This one is still hard (ergo my earlier statement of this being a list of things that I am trying to do). I am a people pleaser, or at least thats my personality. I'm trying to not be afraid to say no, especially when I don’t have a minute to spare or when it takes away from something I already had planned. There will always be exceptions, but when I say yes to one thing, something else has to give. There’s nothing wrong with being selfish with my time. That's just not always easy to remember.

So there you have it. My new found positivity certainly isn't 100% of the time, and I still have my bad days and still get frustrated and anxious, but it is now outweighed with feeling absolutely blessed and lucky. I'm no celebrity, but I have a pretty amazing life, thanks mainly to these three crazies.

Life's A Beach...

  Guess where we just got back from...

Yup, the beach! We had a brief, but amazing trip to Hatteras, North Carolina a little while ago and I think the kids are still tired from all the fun that they had. This was the kids first truly long car ride and they did absolutely amazing. Despite running into some traffic issues and detours around Washington DC on the ride down (which added about 45 minutes to our already 7 hour drive), they were awesome. Of course I had this grand plan of leaving about 9:00 in the morning, which would give us three hours of driving before stopping for a picnic lunch, letting the kids run around in a grassy rest stop, then having them sleep for a good part of the remainder of the drive (since it would be nap time). #notsomuch.

After about almost two hours into the drive, three stops and the fact that we were still not passed Washington should have been my first clue things weren't going to go according to plan. We finally got ourselves re-routed (one of the benefits of being the last to arrive, is that everyone else ahead of you keeps you updated on traffic) and were on our way. Jack slept for about an hour (before nap time) and Emma never slept at all. Good thing Mommy packed lunch because it allowed us to make up some time and keep driving while we ate. We had one last stop about 30 minutes out because Jack was eating some apple and of course shoved WAY too much in his mouth so he threw up all over himself. Luckily, it was just apple and Daddy caught most of it in his hand. Ick. After getting him all cleaned up, we finally arrived about 9 hours later to our awesome beach house.  

One of my favorite things about going on vacation with the kids at this age is how excited they get just to see the house. They run in like it's Christmas morning. Just seeing their crazy little smiles seeing the house made the entire drive worth it.

We arrived around dinner time on Saturday, but ended up doing a little swimming in the pool out back first. The kids were LOVING life. They have always been fans of the swimming pool, at least Emma, but this was the first time they had one in their backyard. Emma blew us away. Last year, even with her floaty-thing-a-ma-jiggy on she wouldn't want us to let go. Within 30 seconds of hoping in the pool and seeing her big cousins swim around, she didn't want us touching her. It was bittersweet.

Jack was loving swimming too and even kicked around "all by self" a couple times too (of course we were right there the whole time though).

After the first day of hanging out and resting we headed to the beach and it was amazing. They are both old enough now that we could last about three hours (which was pretty good). Emma wouldn't go NEAR the water (she got brave a handful of times) but I was okay with that since I didn't have to worry too much about her getting swept away. Jack was pretty much the same. They had so much fun with their big cousins, they slept for days afterwards. :)

On our next to last day, we hit up some ice cream and kite shops and had a great morning! The kids got to fly kites for the first time. It was actually one of those surreal moments, at the beach, with you little ones who thought this was the coolest thing in the world, flying kites in the warm breeze....then Emma woke up from her nap with a whopper of a fever and was super miserable. We went back and forth with what to do, especially since UTIs are always on our mind and ended up deciding to pack up and come home a day early. It actually worked out great, we only had two really quick stops on the way home, and got back in about 7.5 hours which was pretty good. The kids then had a day to rest at home before heading back to school for a few days before the holiday weekend.

All in all, an amazing, quick, but awesome break and it was just what I needed.

What We've Been Up To...

Rather then making one post about everything that we have been up to over the past two months, I decided to combine them all into one so it didn't take me until 2017 to finish! As you can see, we have been pretty busy, had a rough couple of weeks in the middle there, but we also had a lot of fun!

There were several strokes of Mommy genius which ultimately turned out to not-so-Mommy genius, like the time I tried to be the chef in the house and cooked my chicken upside down (yup, that's why Daddy's the chef). There was also the time where I tried to be all super-mom and cut out an elephant shape in the kids toast, and attempted to cook an elephant shaped egg inside the toast. Yet another chef-ing FAIL. Both kids proceeded to eat the cut out elephant bread and didn't touch the majority of it.

We had spring pictures at school, work training for Mommy, a weekend at home with just Mommy and the babies as Daddy visited a friend (that's where the roller skates come into play), some promises of snow that never turned out so we made a cardboard fort, and some new attempts to be creative (and cheap with some DIY home projects). We were desperate for an updated spring wreath so I dismantled an old red/white one and hot glued on some pink and white flowers I had laying around the house. Not bad for spending $0! Does that make up for my lack of ability to cook?

We then got struck with the dreaded stomach virus where the kids got it the worst. Luckily, they were better in time for Jack's 2nd Birthday party complete with homemade Oreo cookie pops! But don't get too excited, that was about the only homemade thing at the party. #simplify.

It was then on to big kid gymnastics registration, parent teacher conferences at school, trips to home depot and more stomach viruses. Poor sissy got it the worst for sure. Somewhere in there we had Jack's 2 year checkup and found out he most likely has allergies and is probably allergic to dust. Ouch.

Then it was off to more gymnastics, birthday parties, and some more tiny home projects where Mommy got a little spray paint happy (our registers and mailbox look like new!!). Oh, and then some more stomach viruses.

::: head desk :::

Throw in lots of overtime for Mommy at work and there's our March in a nutshell!

Things started to calm down a bit in April and finally the weather started to warm up, so once all the stomach bugs were officially kicked, we spent a lot of time outside and got the kids their first 2013 snowballs. Of course being outside threw Jack into full blown allergy mode so it was back to the doctors for some nasal spray.

BTW: Have you ever tried to give a two year old nasal spray and have him inhale through his nose at the same time? Yeah, it's about as easy as it sounds.

Daddy and I did manage to squeak in a date night as a little early birthday celebration as well as a day off for a special trip to the zoo with the babies. Before we knew it, it was May and we were whipping up S'more teacher appreciation gifts, a mother's day celebration and a freshly painted dining room (more info to come on that one)!

Shew! I think that's about it! At least when it comes to the non-normal daily life stuff of cleaning, laundry, ironing, having full time jobs, etc. 

I have to say though, although it was a busy two months and we sure had our rough times with the stomach bug, I am LOVING life right now and soaking up every minute I can get with these crazy people that are my family.

Life is good.

Snowballs!

Clearly, life has not settled down much given my whopping one post in March and whopping zero posts in April. Pretty much the entire month of March and half of April was spent attempting to disinfect the entire house and each person in it since the stomach virus got a hold of pretty much everyone, and hit the little ones way harder then Mommy and Daddy. On top of the stomach virus, there were colds, sinus infections and a little boy who shall remain nameless ::: cough ::: ::: cough ::: ::: the squishy ::: ::: cough ::: who is now most likely allergic to dust, among other things. Until I can get a post out of what we have been up to over the past two months, here's a couple of updated pictures of the hurricanes babies.
I don't know why I love these pictures so much. You have probably already seen them on Facebook but I couldn't resist posting them here as well. This was the first time the kids got a hold of a snowball this spring. Emma had been begging for one for weeks, but the chill in the air and the clouds left most of the local snowball stands closed. Until now....

It's hard to pinpoint my favorite part of this picture. Its either the sunshine bouncing off of The Squishy's overgrown blond hair, the Kayne West sunglasses, the T-Rex racing jammies (despite this being at 3:00 in the afternoon) or the hard core look on his blueberry snowball stained face. It has to be the look on his face and the holding of the snowball that just screams "sup Mom".

I seriously can't get enough of this stinky little man.

Meanwhile, back on the ranch, Emma Kathryn was three-quarters done her snowball. I suppose technically The Squishy was too, but mostly because he spilled over half of it before his first bite.

#snowballsstayoutside.

Emma was totally digging her grape snowball. I finally got her to try the marshmallow in Mommy & Daddy's snowball and boy was that a hit. This girl is so crazy. She took a bite of a s'more last weekend and cried. But not the oh-my-gosh-this-is-delicious-cry. It was the oh-my-gosh-I-can't-believe-I-tried-three-things-I-love-but-they-were-mixed-together-which-is-so-scary-I-might-die-cry. She promptly spit it out.

Luckily, the snowball/marshmallow combo was much better received and she has been begging for one on a daily basis since then. Such a diva.

As soon as I turned my attention back to The Squishy (who is now nicknamed The Hurricane in school), I saw him reaching his grubby little hands over into Mommy & Daddy's snowball sneaking bites while Mommy wasn't looking.

If he wasn't so darn cute he would have been grounded for life. I then realized where he got his "snowballs are no funny business" personality from. Yup, the Mama.